A dance squad or dance team, sometimes called a pom squad or drill team, is a sport team that participates in competitive dance. In a routine, a squad will incorparate a specific dance style (i.e. hip-hop, jazz or lyrical), technical work (tumbling, leaps, turns, kicks, splits, jumps) and, depending on the routine, pompon and/or cheers. A pom squad slightly differs from a regular dance squad in that it uses pom-poms in all its dance routines, whilst a regular dance squad may or may not do pom work in a dance routine. Dance teams are also popular in performance dance, especially at sporting events, most commonly performing during the pre-game and halftime periods (and, in a number of cases, on the sidelines) of football and basketball games.

Dance is a highly competitve sport. Youth/association, middle school, high school, collegiate, all-star, and professional teams compete on local, regional, state, national, and international levels. Teams are judged on a number of criteria including form, team unison, showmanship, precision of motions, jumps, leaps, turns, choreography, enthusiasm, and, in the case of pom squads, visual use of poms-poms.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Types of dance squads 2.1 High School and Collegiate 2.2 All-Star 2.3 Professional 3 Competitions 4 See also 5 References

[edit] Overview

Dance squads emphasize precise, synchronized motions along with technical dance skills (such as jumps, turns, and leaps). Their routines encompass various styles of dance including the more usually incoprorated hip hop, jazz, lyrical, and kickline styles, to the more unusually used styles like disco, rock and roll, and gospel. A key feature of the dance is the ability to change formations very smoothly.

[edit] Types of dance squads

[edit] High School and Collegiate

Traditional high school dance/pom squads include competition, performance dance, and promoting school spirit with dance. Dance/pom is usually a year-round sport, performing in competitions and at sporting events, most commonly football and basketball games. Some schools also have their dance team perform short sideline dances. Traditionally, dance teams also perform at school pep rallies ^[1].

College dance squads are like traditional high school squads in that both include competition and performance dance, but there are many different aspects of being a dancer on a college dance team compared to being on a high school dance squad. For example, a college squad will most likely dance on the sidelines at games or have a specific spot in the stands whilst high schools usually reserve that for cheerleaders. ^[2]

[edit] All-Star

The U.S. All Star Federation governs all-star dance/pom squads.

Tryouts for all-star dance squads may be executed in several different ways. Some all-star teams choose to have just one large tryout in the spring, while other teams may choose to have a large tryout in the spring and another in the fall. A large number of all-star dance squads choose to have year-round open tryouts where anyone can tryout at any time during the season. The opportunity to compete in many large competitions attracts dancers to all star programs. All star dance teams can compete regionally, nationally, and even internationally. ^[3]

[edit] Professional

NFL, NBA, and CFL professional cheerleading are all more Dance Teams than cheerleading squads. “Really, we’re a dance team,” said Samantha Longo of the New York Jets Cheerleaders. She also said while many people associate cheerleading with back flips and human pyramids, cheering in the NFL is "nothing like that" . ^[4]

[edit] Competitions

The prestigious National Dance/Drill Team competitions, from Champion Tours & Events, Inc., are for secondary school and all-star dance teams, with national competitions held in New York City, Los Angeles, and, most famously, in Orlando, Florida. The Flordia team competition is held at the University of Central Florida with the NYC competition held at the College of Staten Island and the L.A. team competition held at the Mater Dei High School arena.^[5]

The Universal Dance Association, founded in 1980, holds a national championship for high school and all-star dance teams and is the only national dance team championship endorsed by the National Federation of State High School Associations. The national championship is held at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. Approximately 300 high school and all-star teams compete at the competition annually. ^[6]

[edit] See also

• Competitive dance
• Dance
• Majorette (dancer)
• Gotta Kick It Up!
• Cheerleading
• Ōendan

[edit] References

This sports-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e